HOF party

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Other then Jukka's power gaming party, what would you guys recommand for a viable HOF party?

 

1 Sorcerer
1 Cleric
1 Deep Gnome Monk

Summon summon and summon some more. Any party can survive so long as they have summons to hide behind. If not, you need the high AC cheesey constructs of the JUPP to get through.

 

Basically, any party would work as long its primary focus is arcane spells. You can have some fun and try unusual multiclass combos, as long as you remember that mage spells should be your primary source of attack.

Melee characters can work in concert with the sorcerors, but be sure to have clerics on standby to buff and rebuff. Of course, the value of hand to hand combat is severly reduced in HoF but swords and axes still can be fun. Just make sure that arcane spells make up about 90% of your arsenal

I like to multiclass my arcane casters to a couple levels of fighter so i can use the cool weapons in HoF. a Sorceror/ fighter/ paladin buffed to the brim with cleric spells is a favorite of mine.

 

As harbourboy said there are two ways to play through HOF: Summons and high-AC-decoy.
Both require high-lvl casters.
You need someone to take the beating and high-HP tanks get killed too fast.
I prefer not to use summons since I see that tactics as much cheesier than using a high-AC decoy but if you use it then the usual summons: Animate dead at lower levels and shades and giant Vermin at higher is good. Throw in some summon monster if you start from HOF to cover the few first levels since summons are HOF-ed too.

If you plan on playing the High-AC-decoy route you could take a look at jukkas decoys from the parties, both the old and new guide (.pdf and .txt files) and the last chapter. You don't need the whole party, just the decoy and someone to cast the spells that the decoy needs to survive (usually barkskin and haste/spirit armor/ghost armor if the decoy isn't a wiz. Maybe bard-song for some decoys). And install bonus merchant pack.

 

Thanks for the suggestions...I'm trying to make a role-playing party that is HOF viable

 

Harborboy, the cleric/deep gnome monk can and should be the same character.

My favorite HoF party is pretty boring:

Deep Gnome Cleric 21/Monk 9
5x Drow Sorcerer 27/Paladin 1/Monk 1/anything 1

I use lots of summons and level squatting.

 

My favorite HoF party:

2 Drow Bards
1 Deep Gnome Lorekeeper of Oghma
1 Drow Wizard

Doesn't look much like a powergaming party at first glance, but originally it wasn't meant to be one. The party takes the alternate route of using summons in HoF.

Notice that all members of the party can cast Wail of the Banshee, Mirror Image and Invisibility. All of them can cast powerful area-effect buffs and summoning spells, along with the effects of two bard songs.

This party was meant to be played starting pre-HoF, however.

 

I believe that you can handily manage HOF mode with a fairly normal party. of course, you will need some summons, but not to strictly speaking "hide behind" as much as to even up the odds. In HOF, there are often more monsters which hit harder, so you need to use summons to even the odds in battle. You can still use your tanks in melee, just make sure that they're not heavily outnumbered.


It also helps to use a lot of immobilizing spells like entangle & web and paralyzing spells like Hold and Symbol of Hopelessness, etc. Any spells which can instantly whittle down the numbers of enemies charging at you will help. Also, enchantment spells are great in HOF, since monsters do not have improved Will saves and will be relatively vulnerable to that type of spell.


And don't overlook the value of an archer using an Everlast arrow. It won't do as much damage as other higher enchanted weapons, but as a returning arrow, it will never run out. It's great for peppering held, webbed, or stunned monsters that don't require enchanted ammo to hit.


In general, you don't need to have a truly overwhelmingly arcane party to beat HOF. The trick is to adjust your tactics to the more powerful monsters and to take advantage of your enemies' weaknesses. And using the terrain to your advantage helps as well.

 

Crucis, that was the better description about how I have to adjust my party to the HoF mode,except may be for archer line, in HoF I prefers my rogue-wizard to figth with the Ballista with extra attacks that gives you the dwarf in the caves(sorry, I suck on names, I don´t know how is the real english name), beacuse you always get high potential damage with crossbows than bows and arrows(If anyones knows why, this is the place to put it).
There are still only two arcane casters in my HoF mode´s victorious party(and one of them multiclass to rogue) so I´m not really miss another arcane caster.

 

Lord Fox, crossbows to a base of 1d8 damage vs. 1d6 for bows. That's why you'll get more damage per hit from crossbows. And, no doubt, the xbows that give extra shots per round are nice, but don't overlook the fact that if you have a character who is primarily using ranged combat with a crossbow, there is no "everlast" xbow bolt. You have to either use a lot of mega cheap unenchanted bolts, or burn thru a lot of expensive, enchanted ones. This is why the everlast arrow is useful.

When you've stunned and immobilized your enemy and perhaps dropped some multi-round damaging spells on them, perhaps you want to keep your party outside of the danger zone and simply use ranged fire to add to the damage caused by your spells. In such a situation, it's nice to not have to waste expensive, enchanted ammo, when some nice everlast arrows and returning hammers/axes will do nicely.

Also, when comparing bows with crossbows, take the following into account. The repeating xbows do not have the same level of extra damage and to hit bonuses as the non-repeating xbows or bows. In short, you give up a pretty fair chunk of extra damage and to hit bonuses to get those extra shots per round. If I happen to have a ranger in my party, I tend to prefer him to use a regular ol' bow over a crossbow so that he can get the very best damage bonuses and to hit bonuses without giving up the extra attacks per round. Yes, he'll get 2 less HP of damage per hit, but I don't overly worry about that. I figure that in the long run, I'll do just fine with my longbow-armed archer.

OTOH, I'm sometimes even willing to let my mage be armed with a non-repeating crossbow over less enchanted, but repeating xbow, so that he can get the highest AB's possible. Simply put, I'd rather have one good hit than 3 misses, when my mage is using his xbow instead of spellcasting. (I know that some will question why I'm not spellcasting at every opportunity with my mages. I tend to take a more pragmatic view of spellcasting, even in HOF. I don't want to have to rest after every battle, even in HOF. So I tend to only use enough spells to get thru most engagements as necessary. Oh, that doesn't mean that I'll be stingy. But if it looks like I have a battle well under control, particularly after all enemy spellcasters are dead, I may just ease off on the spellcasting and let my warriors cleanup the battlefield.


My favorite party that I took thru HOF only had one pure sorc, a pure cleric, a pure paladin, and a pure ranger for spellcasting (as well as a ftr/barb and a ftr/rogue). Not exactly a party full of overwhelming spellcasting potential. And yet, it was a very enjoyable party to play thru HOF.

 

Crossbows are nice at the beginning, but they become the worst missile weapons during the game.

Any missile weapon except crossbows give extra attacks when the BAB rises and benefits from rapid shot, non-bows give even strength bonus.

Even level 30 warriors are stuck with one attack per round using a crossbow (unless the weapon grants extra attacks) while even a level 11 warrior can get 5 attacks per round with any other missile weapon.

 

The crossbow you get in the area where Oswald chashes is quite nice. Same number of attacks as any other weapon makes it quite a killer. And the nice one from the dwarves (the improved one at least.)

Just use infinite stacking part of Ease Of Use mod and buy a few thousends of bolts and you've got yourself an "everlast bolt".